


honey when you knock on my door, i gave you my key

by Quilly



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Asexual Character, Gen, Genderqueer Character, Pansexual Character, Roommates, the adventures of ace!jane and pan!dirk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-30
Updated: 2016-10-29
Packaged: 2018-08-27 20:27:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8415559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quilly/pseuds/Quilly
Summary: The adventures of Jane and Dirk, roommates, best friends, occasional archnemeses where bathroom space is concerned, eternally (platonically) devoted.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, just a couple of stories in the same vein from tumblr I'm posting here. Might work more with this universe some, might not. Have this, anyway.

Your name is Jane Crocker and your roommate has just punched a man in the face.

 

Dirk shakes his hand a little but doesn’t move from where he’s standing in front of you, over the swearing smelly heap of neckbeard that up until a few seconds ago was making loud comments about your breasts and where you lived, anyway. You’re not happy that Dirk had to intercede, but you’re not going to deny that it satisfies you immensely to see the jerk mopping up his nose and crying a little. You take Dirk’s elbow and move him to the side, and after a sharp glance your way he lets himself be moved.

“Next time I say leave me alone,” you say sternly as the idiot glares up at you through watery eyes, “listen to me.”

As you walk away, the punched party makes a rude comment about your roommate, possibly stemming from the fact that Dirk’s outfit today includes a healthy smattering of light blue ruffles (of course it does, because he borrowed one of your skirts today), and you turn back and open your mouth. Dirk forces you back around and speed-walks out of there, your face turning redder and redder every minute he does not let you return to possibly shove your stiletto heel in his face.

“Not worth it,” he says as he chivvies you into a taxi.

“So it’s worth it when _you_ get to punch someone?” you say, but you’re pouting now. If he’d let you go back, you might be late for Parks and Recreation and he knows you’d _really_ be stewing all night. He grins, smoothing down his (your) skirt.

“Wouldn’t want you to break your hand on that guy’s face,” he says. “Too much stupid can kill, y’know.”

You settle back in your seat and resolve to pout extravagantly for the rest of the ride home.

When you get home, Dirk gets the TV set up while you go change. Out in the real world, you wear skirts and dresses and heels, but when you get home, more often than not you slip into loose t-shirts and probably some of Dirk’s boxers, which may or may not actually be one of his exes’ boxers, but either way they fit you and you’re done with proper clothes for the night. You make up the popcorn and sit down next to Dirk with your spoils, preparing to relax by ogling some fine mustachioed beefcake.

Your mind inevitably wanders back to this evening’s confrontation, and you lean against Dirk’s shoulder, breathing out a deep sigh. He glances at you, and awkwardly reaches up with his other arm to pat your head.

“Thanks,” you say, because you never did say it enough when the two of you were younger and he really did help you out tonight. You see that he quirks a small smile, and nods.

“Any time, Crockpot.”

You roll your eyes at the old nickname. Roxy came up with it first, back in high school. You think of high school as a relatively uncomplicated time, despite your and Dirk’s unspoken competition over Jake’s fine microshorts. It got a lot easier to be around him, once you’d both realized why you just weren’t that compatible with Jake (and it had nothing to do with your realization that you’re ace and Dirk’s that he actually does like monogamy).

Getting ready for bed in your apartment is like everything else you do—a little bit of a dance, as you both work around the single bathroom and share  the sink space and hipcheck each other as you pass each other in the hall.

“I have a date tomorrow,” Dirk reminds you as you finish brushing your teeth.

“Do you need the place to yourself?” you ask as you move aside and let Dirk do his mouthwash.

“Depends on what she thinks of my MLP manicure,” he says, and wiggles his fingers at you. “Are you going grocery shopping tomorrow?”

“Should be,” you nod. “I can go see Jake and Roxy’s new place tomorrow, I suppose.”

“You could just let me set you up with somebody,” he says. “Make it a double date.”

You shrug and grin at him, going into your room and getting into bed. Dirk cannonballs in and flops onto the bed, and you wheeze through a giggle as he cuts off your breathing with his weight.

“You eat too many Pizza Rolls,” you complain, and Dirk makes a show of nudging his way under your blankets, curling up against your back.

“I am healthy as a horse,” he yawns. “Goodnight, sweet Jane.”

You smile. “Goodnight.”

It’s not unusual for him to fall asleep in your room, or for you to fall asleep in his, or for both of you to forego beds entirely and fall asleep during TV show marathons on the couch. Honestly, it’s comforting. You might just be a freak who doesn’t like dating because explaining why sex makes you uncomfortable takes longer than it would just to propose cuddling instead, but at least your roommate is just as weird and you know he’s not going anywhere.


	2. Chapter 2

Your name is Dirk Strider and something is wrong with your roommate.

You felt it as soon as you entered the apartment—the energy of the whole place was off. There was no Parks and Rec in the background, no sound at all coming from the kitchen, no melodic singing from the shower or puttering around with the vacuum cleaner. Jane doesn’t like a silent home, despite her introversion; she can’t handle it, the same way you can. You know she’s home because lights are on, because the door was unlocked. You contemplate kidnap, alien abduction, and temporal displacement as you set your bag down, step out of your sneakers, and begin hunting for a tiny dark-haired bundle of motherly concern and cupcakes named Jane.

You find her fairly quickly. It isn’t a large apartment, after all. She’s curled up on her bed on top of the covers, and you hear the concerning sound of sniffling before she attempts to suck it all back up into her skull. “Hey,” she says weakly, and you sit down behind her, tucking your legs up under you and immediately carding your hands through her hair.

“Sup,” you say back, because there is a way these things are done. “I couldn’t find you.”

She shrugs one shoulder, and you sit there in comfortable silence for a while. It’s when a hitching sob seizes up her shoulders that you decide it’s time. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” she says immediately, and you knock on her skull with your knuckles. It’s an old gesture dating back to middle school that basically means “you’ve got to be empty-headed to think I’m that stupid,” or in other words, “bullcrap.” She huffs a laugh, but you don’t relax. You can feel your spine starting to coil in sympathy stress. “Had to delete my Tinder account, is all.”

“You had a Tinder?” you say, which is the wrong thing, because her shoulders immediately hunch. “I mean, it’s fine, I’m on Grindr. And Tinder. And something called Clover, I haven’t figured it out yet, but anyway, not the point. I just didn’t realize you had one. Why did you delete it?”

She doesn’t say anything, but passes you her phone. You figured out her passcode long ago and anyway hacked into it to save your thumbprint, so getting into it isn’t hard. She has her pictures pulled up, front and center is a snapshot of a conversation she was having with someone. You scan it, see a few buzz words like “found the right one” and “like a plant” that set your mental alarms off instantly, and swipe to see if there are any more. There are. You read this person’s rant against Jane’s orientation with a deepening pit in your stomach, scrunching your hand through her hair and stroking down the back of her neck. She’s tense, her back all knotted up (and you _just_ got all her kinks worked out a few days ago).

“Okay,” you say, and pass her phone back. “That is not a nice human being. Did you tell them to piss off?”

She shakes her head. “Just deleted it. Wasn’t worth getting in a fight over.”

You are kind of at a loss for words. You didn’t think dating apps were up Jane’s alley anyway, but you know her, and you know that if it was just one creep, she wouldn’t have quit on the whole thing. She’s too stubborn for that.

“How many times did that happen?”

“Almost every time.”

You wince. “I’m sorry, Jane.”

She shrugs again. You know she can be insecure about it all (too insecure in general), but you haven’t seen her like this in a long time. Not since her first college boyfriend managed to pressure her into sex. You held her then and you can hold her now, if she needs it, but for now she seems content to let you stroke her hair and knead at her neck muscles.

“I just don’t understand why I’m so broken,” she murmurs after a long while. “Normal people like having sex. Normal people find others physically appealing. I don’t know why I’m…why I’m all…” she makes a vague hand gesture that encompasses all of herself, and your heart aches. You slide down and become the big spoon, gathering her up against your chest like you can shelter her from herself somehow.

“You’re not broken,” you whisper fiercely into her hair. “You’re Jane.”

She mumbles something you don’t catch, but sounds self-deprecating. You squeeze her hard, and she wheezes your name, pinching your arm.

“You’re not the only one in the world who isn’t interested in sex,” you say, and scoot back a little as she turns over to face you. “Trust me. I date plenty of them. You’re not the only one.”

The corners of her mouth tilt upwards but without any happiness to it, her eyes unfocused somewhere around your collarbone. You sigh, draping your hand over her waist and knocking your forehead into hers a little harder than you intended. She mewls her displeasure, to which you return an apologetic grunt, and then you breathe for a while. A long, long while.

“I steal your clothes and wear them in public,” you say. “I am at the tail end of the age where it’s socially acceptable to ask out anything with a pulse. I run an ironic puppet porn website and attend furry conventions to kinkshame bronies. If I’m not broken, you definitely aren’t.”

Jane smiles. You know she doesn’t believe you, not entirely, but if you erased even a modicum of that self-loathing, you consider your monologuing worth it. You’ll just have to keep telling her that until she meets someone who can convince her all the way. The way of the best friend, after all: take care of your girl until she meets a human being worthy of her majesty.

You stay like that for a while, breathing, comfortably warm and dozing, and then Jane’s phone buzzes. She reaches behind herself and feels around until she has it, then brings it to her face. She groans. “I forgot I gave them my Snapchat.”

“Give it,” you say, and Jane, knowing full well the horrifying things you send to people who harass her, gives it to you without complaint. You search the darkest, filthiest corners of the internet for a picture vile enough to suit, then faceswap with it and hit send. A few moments later, when Jane checks her Snapchat, the person seems to have disappeared from her friends list, and you smile as she sighs and cracks a true smile of her own.

“Thanks,” she says again, and you smooch her forehead.

“What’s for dinner,” you say, and giggle when she punches you in the stomach.

Some things will change with time, but you know in all your squishy feelings bits that your friendship with Jane is not one of them.


End file.
